These prints are part of a series that records the cities and towns in which Wenceslaus Hollar lived and worked in Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.
An itinerant artist, Hollar’s city views represent an international style of landscape. The grindstone in the foreground of Zu Wesel could be taken straight from
a Florentine drawing (see the example on this wall to the left). The overriding balance between architectural elements and the repoussoir (foreground framing device)
remind us of Callot and Claude Lorrain. The open space of the sky and the rejection of a measured progression from foreground to background, however, look toward
the naturalism of Netherlandish painters.